07/17/2012 • 2:42 PM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
I will act mature, I will act mature, I will act mature.
It’s just an act, but my silence will be my only answer. This I pledge to Thor.
Fellow authors, learn from Rachel the Bad Redhead at the link!
See on sanfranciscobookreview.com
Filed under: publishing
07/17/2012 • 7:13 AM 5
My son asked me if someone was as smart as they think they are. “No one is as smart as they think they are. A
Click here to get this fun book of suspense FREE until tomorrow at midnight.
Small-town terrors and psychological mayhem in Maine.
guy can be an idiot, but if you agree with him, you think he’s a genius.” It got me thinking what else we often get wrong.
1. Two heads aren’t better than one if the dumb, loud guy does all the talking.
2. Instead of instantly deferring to somebody who says, “Listen to me because I’ve done X for twenty years,” wonder this: Have they been doing it wrong for twenty years?
3. When you correct someone, are you out to help them or to feel superior? If it’s the first, thanks. If it’s the second, shut up. (And no one likes you.)
4. Are you reacting out of fear? Are you worried about terrorists when you’re far more likely to die from heart attack, cancer or a slippery bathtub? (Yes, you’re more likely to die from a slippery bathtub.)
5. Do you feel compassion for others or have you given up already because it’s all just too much and what can one person do? One person can make a big difference with one person. Start small. If you can’t handle actual human interactions and social contact, start with that lovely person in the mirror.
6. Are you paralyzed by analysis or waiting for permission? Don’t wait until conditions are perfect to change your life. Perfect never comes but the Good Enough Train is always on time. If you’re waiting for permission, chances are excellent you have lots of people in your life waiting for you to ask so they can refuse. (Choose allies carefully. Dump enemies in the river.)
7. Are you certain about something? Beware! Certainty is the cardinal sign that you aren’t as smart as you would like to think. Serial killers are very confident and have high self-esteem. Scientifically, the less informed we are about a subject, the more certain we are in our opinions. (Though I’m not sure about this. Don’t be too sure. Intelligent people are about nuance, which is why they often lose elections.)
8. Are you mad at someone? They know, but are you sure they understand why? They might change their behaviour if they knew. (Yes, I’m saying don’t be so passive aggressive and spineless and state your needs. And, for God’s sake, if they have spine enough to look at you perplexed and apologize, take the apology and move on. Don’t hold on to your resentments. If they don’t apologize, dump him, girl, because if you don’t stop him now, you will be picking up after him forever.)
9. Some people are very negative, hurtful even, and add, “I’m just being honest.” Really? Or are they congratulating themselves for being nasty? You already know the answer to that question if you have one of these miseries in your life. If you are one of these miseries, stop. If you’re putting up with one of these miseries, go back to #8.
10. People put too much faith in top ten lists, don’t you think? They sure sound authoritative. But I’m just another nit on the interwebs, pontificating. You shouldn’t listen to me. (Or am I using mind fu in a cheap ploy to ingratiate?) Make up your own mind about stuff. You can do that as long as you distrust your brain. It’s not just that people lie. It’s that your brain lies to you all the time, mostly to distract you from the existential horror of the abyss. and to protect us froth knowledge that, yes, we really do look that fat in these jeans. In fact, we’re fat all the time. Hm. Maybe a few lies aren’t so bad. Keeps us off the ledge.
Ancient people thought they knew everything there was to know about the nature of the universe.
Every age is the most modern age and the best minds from each age now sound stupid on lots of subjects.
The chances we now know what we’re doing is, statistically speaking, lousy.
~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of Self-help for Stoners, The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories, Bigger Than Jesus, and Sex, Death & Mind Control (for fun and profit). The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories is the foundation of the Poeticule Bay suspense novels that are now in the works. This novella and short story bundle is free on Amazon until Wednesday night. Please go grab it and, if you love it, please review it. Thanks!
(To see all of Chazz’s books, click here.)
Filed under: publishing, Advice, Amazon Kindle, Bigger than Jesus, Blog, blogger, blogging, Dangerous Kind & Other Stories, Opinion, relationships, Robert Chazz Chute, the brain, Top Ten, Ultimate Blog Challenge, writer, writing
07/16/2012 • 11:35 AM 4
FREE FOR 3 DAYS.
Small-town terrors and psychological mayhem in Maine.
Last week I read a couple of debates about whether free is good or bad. JA Konrath is all for it. Blake Crouch isn’t so sure. There are good points on both sides of the debate. You’ll notice I’m offering one of my short story collections for free for three days this week in the hope that I will gain some readers who wouldn’t otherwise find me. I do so wholeheartedly and hope you’ll go grab it. It helps to get on lists like “Customers Also Viewed…” and so on. This post is about book promotion. I think Free is still a useful tool, though its edge has dulled considerably.
The root of the back and forth on the issue of using free as a promotional tool seems to break down along two main lines:
1. Argument against free from principle (i.e. Art shouldn’t be devalued and lowering readers’ expectations of price is a stupid strategy in the long term.) Argument 1 might be right in the long-term, but if I don’t get into your consciousness now, there may be no long-term for me as a writer. Also, the exclusivity that KDP Select requires — three months at a time — rubs many authors raw. Amazon has certainly lost some of its shine and if you lose too many sales because you aren’t up on Kobo etc.,… as well, free days on Amazon probably don’t make sense past your first three months of offering the book. It’s also argued, often effectively, that free feeds the trolls of the one-star review brigade who review harshly because they didn’t pay attention to what they were “buying.” Or they’re just it in to be mean trolls, I guess. So you can argue that free hurts not only the cause of enlightened literacy generally, but it hurts author’s feelings and review ratings individually.
2. Argument for free because it works (i.e. If you can write, you can sell books, but not if no one knows who you are. Give away to get new readers.) Argument 2 is weakened because, since Amazon changed its algorithms, free doesn’t work nearly as well as it did a few months ago. People are loading up their kindles, but are they ever getting around to reading all that hoarded goodness so they could, theoretically, become a fan and buy the rest of my books? (If you don’t have multiple books for sale, free surely won’t help you now. Have multiple books going before you dive into KDP Select’s free days.)
A. I try not to confuse an Ought with an Is. The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories is a collection of fun suspense and small-town mayhem in Poeticule Bay, Maine. In the future, I plan a series of suspenseful novels set in Poeticule Bay. Many of my stories have characters who cross-pollinate other stories. (For instance, Jesus Diaz, my luckless Cuban hit man, shows up first in a story in Self-help for Stoners.) There is worthy cross-promotion in this.
B. I added value to this collection. The novella, The Dangerous Kind and several of the stories were previously published individually and sold for 99 cents each. I added two more stories to the collection, including the award winner The Sum of Me (which brought down the house when I gave a reading at a writers conference a few years ago.) The Sum of Me appeals to writers or anyone who has struggled with credit card debt. The usual price of the collection is only $2.99 and for three days, it’s free. Good deal.
C. What I put up on Amazon for free will only be available for a limited time. After my three-month exclusivity contract with KDP Select is over, I’ll put the books up on the other platforms. (As mentioned last week on this blog, Kobo, as one instance, is changing things up and coming on stronger. Keep an eye on them.)
Questions remain: When I read a guru with a big name say we should do this or that to sell our books, I wonder, does the same strategy work for a big name as a small one? Is every bit of advice fungible? Things change. If we were still on Amazon’s old Free List to Paid List formula (and maybe if we weren’t in the middle of a glut of free) I’d already be sitting pretty.
Good strategies are realistic, doable, measurable, timely (and are always declared “good” after the fact and without factoring in luck.) I’ll let you know if this strategy moves the needle.
Free might not be as good as it once was,
but now I don’t know what else to do to get off the bench besides write another book.
I’m already doing that.
PLEASE GRAB THE DANGEROUS KIND & OTHER STORIES HERE
Filed under: publishing, Amazon, Amazon.com, Blog, blogger, blogging, book, book promotion, Dangerous Kind & Other Stories, free, free ebooks, Kobo, Robert Chazz Chute, self-help for stoners, short story, short story collection, Ultimate Blog Challenge, writer, writing
07/16/2012 • 9:49 AM 2
I had a surprising conversation last night. It was largely about Sarah Palin. I detailed various aspects of her run for the vice presidency which did not put her in a good light. She wasn’t ready and she tried to bluff her way in. I was fair, but I went through a list of things she had done and said that anyone who follows politics would know. The surprise part was that it was my nine-year-old son asking the questions as we went on a power walk.
This led to other tangents about the people with whom we don’t want to associate, like bullies, twits and half-term governors (not that she’s calling to come over and kvetch over coffee.) The larger lesson comes from a Bare Naked Ladies’ lyric, “If there is some you can do without in your life, then do so.” It’s good advice because hanging out with the wrong people, whether it’s around a barbecue or in business, sucks life energy away. In the past, I ‘ve tended to cut people loose, but not nearly fast enough. I told myself I had to pay my dues or put up with it or be more patient or be nice and the problem would go away. Problems don’t tend to go away on their own, especially when those problems are people.
I’m not even sure what my reasoning was for waiting so long to but the dead weight. In a couple of cases I thought I didn’t have a choice financially (not true as it turned out) or I worried getting away from bad people would be complicated. I was wrong. Keeping stupid, mean or incompetent people around was far more complicated than disentangling myself from their clutches.
To the boss, the publisher, the financial adviser, the various people who called me friend but acted differently when it suited them: I am thinking of a two-word answer. The two words are not “Thank you.”
Good luck finding a new pin cushion who is half as entertaining because,
as bad as our relationships were,
I was always awesome.
Filed under: publishing, bad people, Business, codependence, freedom, independence, indie, relationships
07/15/2012 • 6:12 PM 3
Imagine how perplexed I was when I discovered this website is most popular in Wichita.What? According to
Fisherman’s Wharf sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Alexa.com, “the global leader of analytics”, it’s true. Before you plug in your URL into Alexa’s Popularity Contest Scanner, brace yourself for a stake through your ego. But it’s also fascinating. More women read this website and a bunch of readers here have grad school education.
You can actually get a breakdown of your audience for free using Alexa. Just plug in your URL and you’ll get a lot of clues about SEO. You can find out how people found you with these analysis categories: Search, Audience, Reviews, Clickstream (indicating for percentage of unique visitors) and Traffic stats. Be sure to click for details. That’s how I found out I’m popular in Wichita. (Hello, Wichita! Never been there. Don’t know anyone there. Thanks for reading! Keep clicking!)
Another site to consider is Klout. It’s really a data farm, but it’s no less fascinating and measures your overall influence, not just your websites. (Just resist tweeting your laudatory notes from all your new friends.) Through Klout I learned that my Facebook marketing extends my reach and influence more than my three Twitter accounts. That amazed me. I got my cool new business cards (from Moo) as a perk through Klout, so there’s that. Also, Klout allows me to give a note of acknowledgement and gratitude to people who contribute to my neural net. I especially enjoy seeing how influencers are classified. I’m an expert in a niche according to Klout. One day, maybe there will be fame and riches, too, but Klout says, “Not yet!”
I wrote about starting up a podcast of your very own (below). Libsyn shows me, not only the numbers, but where my podcasts are consumed and on what platforms. My podcast, Self-help for Stoners, is most popular in San Francisco — way to hold up the brand’s stoner cliche, Frisco! (Hey! Pick up your feet, Wichita!) Chicago, New York and Alberta count among heavy listeners to the podcast, too. What does it mean? I don’t think anything. Hm. Except…maybe in a future book in The Hit Man Series, Jesus Salvador Diaz will wreak some entertaining mayhem in Wichita on his way to San Francisco. (Actually, in Higher Than Jesus — coming soon — Jesus already admits to a visit to San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz (as a tourist.) I wasn’t pandering when I wrote that, though. It was relevant because I spent some time there and everything I do is research. I am looking forward to pandering to my audience, though.
These are the dubious rewards of the flip side of the great popularity contest.
Filed under: publishing, Alexa, Bigger than Jesus, Blog, blogger, blogging, Clickstream, Facebook, Klout, Liberated Syndication, Podcast, popularity, Robert Chazz Chute, statistics, Twitter, Ultimate Blog Challenge, website stats
07/15/2012 • 9:07 AM 1
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
e-Book Cover Design Awards, June 2012 including covers by Damon Freeman and Patty Wallace…
Awesome book covers at this link and commentary that helps you figure out what makes a good book cover. Several of Kit Foster’s covers appear here, including what he did for me for Bigger Than Jesus, Mike Canino’s The Will of the Gods and Dave Jackson’s More Podcast Money (as in my buddy, the podcast guru, from the last post.) Kit is an awesome artist. Check out more of his work at KitFosterDesign.com. Learn at the link! ~ Chazz
See on www.thebookdesigner.com
Filed under: publishing
07/13/2012 • 8:38 AM 2
English: Podcast or podcasting icon Français : Icône pour les podcasts ou la baladodiffusion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s radio with a low barrier to entry. It’s like having your own no-stupid-rules radio station that’s really close to free. You could be on iTunes a few days from now, promoting your business, your books, and yourself to the world. I’ve got fans in San Francisco, Dubai, Beijing and places I’d never heard of because of podcasts.
Since I began podcasting my crime novel a chapter at a time, several people have asked me how I set up my podcast and what’s involved. I can give you the broad strokes with an easy TOP 10 list. Don’t get overwhelmed. It’s not that hard, especially if you take my strongest advice and go straight to Tip #10.
1. You’ll need a microphone. I have two, one for $127 and one for $90. The cheaper one works better. Some people say you have to use a mixer to make sure your audio doesn’t peak and hurt listeners’ ears. However, I prefer the mic that plugs straight into the computer. No need to be fancy with your podcast. You don’t have to be a Mac user. A chair that doesn’t squeak is a better investment. You don’t have to buy expensive shock mounts of your mics (but do get a screen for your microphone, called a sock, so you don’t “pop your ps”. Popped ps do thud into your listeners’ eardrums. You don’t have to have enhanced videocasts. Most of the people who listen to podcasts are either out for a walk, doing laundry or on a treadmill as they listen to programming. Video in podcasting is a deficit, not an asset.)
2. You’ll need a computer program to record and edit your podcast. Audacity is free. I use GarageBand. Though it does cost, I found the interface easier, especially since a friend gave me a one-on-one tutorial. I tried Audacity without help and the learning curve was a bit steeper. (I’m not turning anyone away from Audacity, though. It’s free and useful. It was just easier for me since I already knew someone who knew the software. Having a buddy who’s already in the know might make for a different choice for you, too.)
3. You’ll need a blog. WordPress is free and most anyone who reads this post already has a blog. Those lovely non-problems are the easiest to solve. There is also an ID3 tag editor (app) to buy, but it’s just a few dollars for a little program that will help you label your podcast and prepare it for upload to Libsyn. Speaking of which…
4. You’ll want a Libsyn account. Libsyn is the company that will publish your podcast to iTunes, your blog and elsewhere (even apps). Go for the $20 a month option. You can pay less, or even go with some outfit that will give it to you for free, but they cost more in the long term in other ways. For instance, lots of places will let you use them to broadcast your podcast, but you can’t move it anywhere later, so, effectively, they own your podcast, not you. You hold on to your rights and options by going with Libsyn. The best thing about Libsyn is that you bank unused broadband. When I started, I was worried about the hidden costs. What if my podcast is so popular, the broadband gets too expensive to pay? With Libsyn, there aren’t any hidden costs and they have an excellent stats page so you know exactly how popular you are. (Or not.)
Once you’re set up, you can also get your podcast on Stitcher. Stitcher is a very popular podcast outlet because it’s free and it allows listeners to wirelessly stream podcasts to their phone or iPod. They don’t have to hook up to their computers. The podcasts take up no space on any device. Since I discovered Stitcher, I hardly ever use iTunes.
5. You’ll have to have some time set aside. Every minute on air means four minutes in total invested with production. That’s a good rule of thumb, though I’ve managed to shorten it a bit over time. Don’t cut too many corners, though. I missed an edit a few podcasts back and the paper rustling seemed a tad unprofessional. Don’t be too professional, though. Mistakes are authentic moments and I like when the unexpected happens in a podcast. The unexpected never happens in radio and that’s one of the reasons radio is boring and only people who are trapped in cars or terrorist attacks listen to radio anymore.
Want a horrific example of authenticity? I’ve talked about the hilarious aspects of my colonoscopy, my first schoolyard fight, how I got screwed over by a financial adviser and a publisher, and worst of all, how I felt too fat and unsuccessful to go to my college reunion. You don’t have to be this revealing, but being real works in podcasting.
Don’t be self-conscious about your voice, either. I have a stammer that becomes evident when my brain works faster than my tongue. My delivery is positively Shatnerian. I talk in bursts and when I speed up I talk like a Nova Scotian, really fast and in the back of my throat. Most of that either isn’t a real issue, improves with practice or can be edited out.
6. Get good album art. I used a cover from my book Self-help for Stoners because I wanted to publicize the book and 
podcast to an identifiable audience. Calling the podcast Self-help for Stoners made sense at the time. (As discussed in a recent post on book promotion, I’m changing that because I have so many more books now. One book is not your brand. You are your brand. Think long term.) You’ll need a couple of images of different sizes for this. When you know those sizes and have an idea for an image to represent your podcast, talk to Kit Foster at KitFosterDesign.com. His prices are very reasonable. He’s my graphic artist. Heck, Kit is The Graphic Artist. (Can’t wait to show everybody what he came up with for my print cover for Bigger Than Jesus!) If you go without a professionally designed image, your podcast listing makes you look like a hack and you’ll definitely be skipped over.
7. Choose your category. My categories for different podcasts range from politics to fiction to comedy. Some of your audience might like variety, though if you go deep into a particular topic or niche, you’ll definitely find your audience quicker. Go with your passions. Stick with one podcast to start. Setting up the first one and doing it right will probably cost $200 or $300. After that, it’s cheap (and a claimable promotion cost.)
Do it with someone else and not only do you split the cost, you’ve got a co-host to bounce ideas with. Monologuing (as I do) is not for everyone and I sometimes wish I had someone else on the mic.
Also decide if your podcast will be a swearfest or family friendly, explicit or clean. I started out swearing and came around to PG. Also, consider that if you want advertisers, unless you’re Joe Rogan or Kevin Smith, most advertisers prefer clean podcasts.
8. You’ll need to promote your podcast. I’ve been a guest or I’ve been mentioned on other podcasts about ten times or more so far. Similar to guest blogging for bloggers, I think that’s helped the most. I learned recently that it’s been proved statistically that there’s no correlation between a large Twitter following and a large podcast following. That surprised me but I have no reason to doubt the stats. That said, if you can be rich and famous first, that doesn’t really hurt any endeavour, does it?
9. Do you have enough to say? When I started podcasting last November, I reasoned that if I ever ran out of stuff to say, I could always just read some of my fiction. I did read a bunch of my fiction on the podcast, but I also found I had a lot to say that had nothing to do with fiction. I’ve done skits and bits and improv. I’ve gotten angry and sad and confessed and condemned. Just as you would with a blog, brainstorm what you might talk about.
There’s no rule that says you have to do a podcast that’s an hour, two hours or three hours long. Most of
Click to get Bigger Than Jesus
my podcasts were 40 – 45 minutes once a week. Then I decided to make shorter podcasts but a twice a week. Then, to get the word out about The Hit Man Series, I’m podcasting Bigger Than Jesus a chapter at a time. Book 2, Higher Than Jesus, might be ready for podcast before I’m done recording the foundation book. Podcasting helps with the final proof, as well. We’ll see. No rules, remember? I love that about being indie in whatever I do.
Listen to a lot of podcasts to get a flavor of what works for you. Figure out where you fit. Are you the next Grammar Girl (the first podcaster on Oprah) or Mur Lafferty from I Should Be Writing? How-to podcasts are very popular (if you have enough to say on the subject long term.) I listen to Litopia (for everything publishing); some stuff from the Kevin Smith network since he started my career; The Joe Rogan Experience has awesome guests (and depending on what you’re doing with your podcast, guests are great); The David Feldman Show (because I’m a lefty who loves comedians); and The Best of the Left (for smart politics). There are, of course, thousands of podcasts to choose from, those are a few of my favourites. You should also listen to The School of Podcasting by Dave Jackson. You can even join up and learn more. Dave is an enthusiastic educator who loves podcasting. He can teach you everything from how to set it up to how to monetize it properly. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know about podcasting.
10. Which leads me to my most important tip of this monster post: Talk to Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting to get help setting up your podcast. He teaches and consults. I am not an expert on podcasting. That doesn’t stop me from being a podcaster thanks to Dave.
When I started out, I read all the FAQ I could find. I made my first podcast, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it out into the world. I had launched my first books and I was anxious to promote them via an avenue I knew a lot of people were missing out on. I was missing out! A lot of people are still missing out! You’re probably missing out right now! After days of frustration, I called Dave Jackson: Great guy, smart guy, patient guy. He knows the nuances of feed burner and RSS feeds and setting up your podcast without tears or time lost. He’ll get you past the mechanics and into what matters: reaching a wider audience you would never otherwise reach.
UPDATE: Dave just emailed me that he is revising his website this weekend. Hang in there if it’s not completely available when you check in. He’ll have chat on, so Dave can still set up a consultation to help you set up your podcast.
Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, Audacity, crime novel, Dave jackson, GarageBand, how to podcast, iPod, iTunes, Kevin Smith, Kit Foster, kitfosterdesign.com, Podcast, podcasting, school of podcasting, Stitcher, stoner, Stoners
07/12/2012 • 11:32 AM 5
Check out all the books by Robert Chazz Chute here.
1. My first draft of this chapter was too easy on the protagonist. I wanted to show that Jesus had skills. He’s not a lame sad sack, though he is subject to Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong, it will. This seems particularly true of my Cuban hit man Jesus Diaz. When I went revised, the chapter doubled in length to a much more tense and intense sequence.
2. I needed to use this scene to show that the heroine was worth fighting for. I really dislike stories where the heroine is merely an interchangeable object who, when things get dicey, can’t be depended upon. There are already too many stories out there where the guy fights the bad guy while the woman runs away, is tied up, twists an ankle, or presses herself against a wall while looking on in horror. (That’s a way too retro view of women. I like strong women.) A real man in any fight for his life will shriek, “Grab a shovel and hit this monster in the head! Don’t just stand there! He’s trying to kill me, for god’s sake!” Heroes who fight alone with an ally/romantic interest nearby aren’t heroes. They’re morons.
3. I put my protagonist through the burner. His reactions are realistic. He shakes. He trembles. He feels the euphoria of savagery and depths of fear. When bad things happen, he doesn’t just shrug it off. When somebody shoots at you, it’s totally unrealistic to react as if the shooter has offered you a sandwich of a sort you simply do not prefer.
4. The obstacles don’t stop. The guiding principle in The Hit Man Series is this: I don’t like it when the reader knows what’s coming next. Try to anticipate the unexpected. A lot of the time, I’m not sure what’s coming next, either. Expect a fast pace, twists and reversals.
5. A lot of fight scenes are dumb. This one isn’t. It means something much more to the larger story and to the characters.
6. There are long term consequences to a good fight scene. It’s not an episodic chapter of action only for action’s sake.
7. This fight scene elucidates in part how Jesus got the skills he did so what he can do doesn’t arrive out of nowhere.
8. The fight unearths something from Jesus Diaz’s personal history that overturns what readers think they know about his origin story. There was much more going on in Cuba than was revealed in the first book. I only found out when Jesus told me the other day.
9. The fight scene establishes my hit man’s amoral centre, but, because of his love for the heroine, he wants to reach higher. He wants to change. One of his challenges for the long arc of the series is, can he change? Can anyone?
10. When Higher Than Jesus comes out, you’ll see what I mean about this. No spoilers here, but I can say when the action is fast, the scene slows to take in details and make you grit your teeth. When the action slows down, the tension cranks up so there are questions that propel the story to the last word of the scene and the chapter.
This particular fight scene shows where Jesus Diaz has been and where he’s going.
The fight isn’t just with a couple of bad guys.
It’s about the fight between the two sides of Jesus’s character.
It’s about the fight we all face with the devils of our worse nature.
Filed under: publishing, Bigger than Jesus, Blog, blogger, blogging, Combat, crime, fiction, fight scenes, higher than jesus, Hit Man Series, Jesus Diaz, Robert Chazz Chute, suspense, suspense novelist, Ultimate Blog Challenge, writer, writing, writing fight scenes
07/11/2012 • 1:27 PM 0
See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction
For real-life stories from indie authors on how much they spent to self-publish their work, check out our discussion: How Much Does It Cost to Self-Publish a…
Duolit provides an interesting resource in this article on the costs of being indie. The price list is irresistable, if only to compare what prices you have already paid for certain services to figure out: Did you get a deal or did you possibly pay too much? Learn at the link! ~ Chazz
See on selfpublishingteam.com
Filed under: publishing
07/11/2012 • 10:20 AM 5
Something is missing from the following back matter from Bigger Than Jesus.
About the Author
After several years working in the publishing industry, I took a long hiatus and then founded Ex Parte Press. I was a journalist and magazine columnist and now write in a lead-lined bunker full-time. I’m happily chained to my writing desk by an intravenous line feeding me espresso. My desk chair is a toilet and I’m writing as fast and as well as I can.
Thank you so much for reading Bigger Than Jesus. If you liked it, it will help Jesus Diaz and me immensely if you could please leave a happy review on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever you bought this book. Watch for the next instalment in this series: Higher Than Jesus, coming soon. Five books are planned for this series so far. If you’d like to get a glimpse of Jesus as a mature, more professional, hit man, you can find the story that started his character in my collection of short stories, Self-help for Stoners. You’ll find he’s more polished, but things still go awry. All the latest updates about my books can be found at AllThatChazz.com.
After this note I have a list of my other titles and notes on how to contact me through my websites, email, media inquiries and a note about my podcast and Twitter.
Steady…ready…go!
In its current incarnation, I haven’t loaded up the first chapter of the follow-up book in The Hit Man Series.
Click to get Bigger Than Jesus
It’s written and I should include it. People like a sneak peek and, after spending so much time with my clever, funny and scarred protagonist, they will probably want to get a hint at where Jesus Diaz goes next. I think I really need to include a chapter from Higher Than Jesus. His story continues in unexpected ways, means and places in a plot that includes Neo-nazis, a street gang, drugs, arms, a very tall blonde and a plot to assassinate the President of the United States.
Fortunately, since I can upload at any time, it’s never too late for an afterthought, an improvement or a tweak.
Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, Amazon, Amazon.com, Bigger than Jesus, Blog, blogger, blogging, book design, crime, entertainment, higher than jesus, paperback, Publish, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, suspense, thriller, Ultimate Blog Challenge, writer, writing
Winner of Writer's Digest's 2014 Honorable Mention in Self-published Ebook Awards in Genre
The first 81 lessons to get your Buffy on
More lessons to help you survive Armageddon
"You will laugh your ass off!" ~ Maxwell Cynn, author of Cybergrrl
Fast-paced terror, new threats, more twists.
An autistic boy versus our world in free fall
Suspense to melt your face and play with your brain.
Action like a Guy Ritchie film. Funny like Woody Allen when he was funny.
Jesus: Sexier and even more addicted to love.
You can pick this ebook up for free today at this link: http://bit.ly/TheNightMan
See my books, blogs, links and podcasts.
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